


Give and Take

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:47:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: Kylo Ren, Ben--he knew not what his name ought to be now, at the end of everything safe and known--felt the familiar, tell-tale sting of newly conjured tears as he stared into his dysmorphic reflection shining up at him from a set of golden dice. His father’s dice. He shuddered a gasp, ignoring how his tears now trickled from the corners of his eyes, dripping into the crevasses of his face.The air stilled, his breathing harsh in the empty space only he and Rey could reside. His muscles were too slow, too underdeveloped, he wanted to glance up at her instantly but even Ben (he would be Ben for her, he decided) couldn’t overcome bodily limits.Then their eyes met.





	Give and Take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OccasionallyCreative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionallyCreative/gifts).



Kylo Ren, _Ben--_ he knew not what his name ought to be now, at the end of everything safe and known--felt the familiar, tell-tale sting of newly conjured tears as he stared into his dysmorphic reflection shining up at him from a set of golden dice. His father’s dice. He shuddered a gasp, ignoring how his tears now trickled from the corners of his eyes, dripping into the crevasses of his face.

 

The air stilled, his breathing harsh in the empty space only he and Rey could reside. His muscles were too slow, too underdeveloped, he wanted to glance up at her instantly but even Ben (he would be Ben for her, he decided) couldn’t overcome bodily limits.

 

Then their eyes met.

 

She was livid, furious with him for his decision, but Ben stumbled forward, tripping over too-large feet and lanky limbs as he hurried to her. He didn’t deserve this opportunity to make things right, to tell her that he would become nothing for _her,_ but he would take advantage if only to feel the warm whisper of her calloused fingertips graze his own once more.

 

 _Please, don’t let it be too late,_ he pleaded to the Force. He would give anything.

 

Her mask of rage sifted away to reveal the pain he had caused and she reached back.

 

He wasn’t shown the whole of their past as their fingers touched, but as she gripped his hand, Ben realized he didn’t need anything but her. Rey pulled and pulled, as if she was ripping him through space itself, and Ben didn’t resist. He slipped through the ether, colliding with solid warmth and the supple give of real skin, and he sobbed like a child, his arms coiling around her strong, willowy form.

 

“Rey,” he warbled, his mouth obstructed by loose, sweet smelling hair when he tucked his face into the comforting crook of her slender neck.

 

In the same breath she uttered, _“Ben.”_

 

The entirety of the universe shrunk down to the air between them. She was here...or he was there, Ben wasn’t sure whether it mattered, and all he knew was the rasp of her fingernails as she tried to cling to him and the wet heat of her tears as they muddled with his own. Wherever they were, they were there together and even as Ben knew that was impossible, he didn’t question the gift they had been given.

 

“Don’t leave me again,” she said.

 

“Never,” he promised. “We’ll never be apart again.”

 

Even in his own mind, it sounded too optimistic.

 

Perhaps because it _was._ In the next moment, they were surrounded by the Resistance, blasters set to kill.

 

Ben should have known Poe Dameron would be alive and well, and still the ringleader of whatever hodgepodge group he could string together. Some things never did change.

 

He could feel Rey’s panic as if it were his own, thrumming high and tight in her throat, closing in with the finality of a noose. These were her friends, the people she had rather defend than rule over, yet they turned on her so easily. His instincts warred: did he push the fighters back or did he use himself as a shield?

 

“Let her go!” Poe snarled, stepping closer with a blaster aimed between Ben’s eyes.

 

Ben seethed back at him. “Lower your weapon before you start something you can’t finish.”

 

Poe stared at him for a moment, stunned into a brief silence. Then he remembered where they were and who, exactly, had the better odds.

 

“I’ll take my chances, _Kylo Ren,”_ he sneered. “I have no idea how you got onto this ship but as of this moment, I sentence you to death for crimes against the Republic.”

 

Ben could stop a blaster shot, perhaps a few, but he looked around the crowded onramp, realizing belatedly that he was aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ and that there were at least fifteen Resistance fighters surrounding them. It seemed ironic to die moments after boarding his father’s ship.

 

“NO!”

 

Rey cried out, her voice piercing and weighted with the power of the Force. Ben grunted, her will causing him to buckle to his knees alongside the fighters surrounding them, forming a circle of awed and fearful faces. His would have been among those faces if she hadn’t immediately wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clutched him as closely as possible.

 

“No,” she repeated, her chest heaving into his ear. “No one is to touch him.”

 

Ben gazed up at her in disbelief.

 

A calm voice rose over the din. “What is the meaning of this?”

 

His mother. She was _alive._

 

* * *

 

What had she done?

 

One moment, Rey was ushering the Resistance into the Falcon so they could make a getaway, and the next she was bringing Ben into her arms, clutching him as they wept together. Then her friends had surrounded them by blasters and Rey couldn’t think, only _act._

 

Now she met Leia’s hard, unreadable gaze, her son’s face still burrowed into her chest and the Resistance brought, quite literally, to their knees.

 

“You two had better follow me,” Leia said, her voice taking on an edge that Rey hardly recognized.

 

She helped Ben to his feet and kept his hand in hers after, her fingers squeezing his in an attempt to convey...something. Something that echoed his earlier promise that they would never be parted again without words and she could only hope he understood. He squeezed back, staring ahead resolutely.

 

Leia guided them down the narrow, curved passageway and into a part of the Falcon she had never dared enter: the captain’s quarters. Ben hesitated by the door, his hand tightening around hers as she stepped in. She glanced back at him from over her shoulder, their hands still connected but their arms outstretched as he refused to enter.

 

Leia sighed. “Both of you sit, please,” she told them, gesturing towards the bunk.

 

“I’m not sitting there,” Ben said.

 

His mother--Rey had to remind herself that they were parent and child and she was an outsider here--rolled her eyes. “Would you rather we have this discussion in the cargo hold for everyone to hear?”

 

“Yes, actually.”

 

Leia’s expression flattened with exasperation. “Well, that’s not going to happen. Considering the position you’ve put yourself in, you have no room to argue with me. Sit. _Down.”_

 

Rey thought he looked like he’d just had a drink from the happabore trough, his lips drawn into a thin, displeased grimace. Still, he kept his hand linked with hers, hesitantly following her to the dreaded bunk. Ben gave the faded cushions a long, withering look of disgust before gingerly taking a seat.

 

Leia stared between them and their joined hands, waiting for an explanation that neither she nor Ben, were willing to provide. Rey hadn’t thought about the consequences of Ben leaving Crait with the Resistance and wasn’t at all prepared for the awkwardness of facing the general beside her traitorous son.

 

At length, Leia deflated with a quiet huff. “I need you to give me something, Ben.”

 

His shoulders tensed next to her, his fingers clenching almost painfully. “I don’t know what to say.”

 

The longer Rey remained in the room with them, the more she felt she had no right to be there. Ben hadn’t lied to her, she had no place in this story. She was a scavenger amongst royalty.

 

“Why now?” Leia asked. “Why didn’t you come home with your father?”

 

The mere mention of Han ripped a hole in him and Rey felt his heartache as if it was burning in her own chest. He needed to face what he had done, though, and his mother deserved an explanation for the death of her husband.

 

“Ben,” she whispered.

 

He ducked his head, his hair falling forward to obscure his face. “Nothing I tell you will change what I’ve done.”

 

“I know,” Leia murmured. “I need you to say something anyway.”

 

Rey stood abruptly. Though she sensed that Ben wanted her there, she knew she had no place in this discussion. He glanced up at her with wide, watery eyes, pleading for her to stay without words. She smiled, slipping her hand free of his and raising it to his cheek.

 

“I’ll be right outside,” she promised. “You should speak with your mother alone.”

 

Finn was waiting for her when she stepped into the curved corridor. Rey could only imagine how betrayed he must have felt that she would stand beside Ben against the Resistance, that she would even protect him at the risk of her own life. She could apologize or try to explain herself, but it wouldn’t make up for the fact that she was sided with the man that had nearly killed Finn.

 

“Where is he?” Finn snarled, pushing away from where he was leaned.

 

“With Leia. Leave them be.”

 

He scoffed. “Leave them be? Are you joking, Rey? That monster has already killed one parent, why would we give him the opportunity to finish off the other?”

 

“That’s not going to happen,” she assured with a firm voice.

 

Finn threw up his arms in frustration. “Right! Of course! I forgot you have Jedi powers and can see the future now!”

 

Rey wrapped her arms around herself, smiling despite herself. “Is it so impossible that he could leave the First Order? You did.”

 

“Yeah,” he grumbled, “but I’m not Kylo-fucking-Ren.”

 

“Neither is he,” she said. Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

Ben Solo glared up the imposing staircase that led all the way to the island’s highest point, readjusting his pack when it began to slip from his shoulder.

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked for what could very well be the hundredth time.

 

She grinned, tugging him towards the steep steps. “You’re not going to get rid of me so easily, Ben.”

 

He exhaled, following along. It had been his mother’s idea for them to come here and Ben had seen the island in Rey’s mind but that had done nothing to prepare him for how truly isolated the place was. She had spent all her life trapped in one place; shouldn’t she be off with her friends, taking in the delights of the galaxy? He hated the sinking feeling that he was forcing her to sacrifice her own happiness for his sake.

 

“Stop moping, we’re nearly there,” Rey teased breathlessly, marching up the winding stairs with enthusiasm.

 

Ben didn’t answer, staring out at the blue horizon speckled with distant islands. Ahch-To seemed uninhabited but as he stretched out his senses, little blips of life surrounded them in the Force and he realized they would not be alone here.

 

Rey came to a stop at a cluster of stone huts, laughing as she hurried across a small courtyard to one of the squat dwellings. “The caretakers must have been furious with me...I’m surprised they were able to rebuild so quickly, after Luke--”

 

She closed her mouth, turning back to him in shame.

 

“It’s okay,” he muttered. “He’s gone now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

 

She nodded though he could tell she didn’t believe him. Ben didn’t care. He was ready to put all thoughts of Luke and his utter betrayal behind him and maybe he could start to do that here, on this island that was teeming with the Force, light and dark.

 

“This is where I slept,” she told him, running a hand over the rocky entrance.

 

He looked over the next closest hut, supposing he should dump his belongings so she could make herself at home. He had no doubt she would want her own privacy and to even presume that they would share a dwelling was crossing a line. Ben wasn’t sure what she expected from him but he hoped…well, he wasn’t sure it mattered what he hoped for. He would take whatever she offered without complaint. She had already given him so much more than he deserved.

 

Inside his hut was little more than a central hearth, swept clean of ashes, and a stone bench on which to sleep. He set his pack down and settled onto the bench, gazing around the circular room in silent acceptance.

 

The remainder of the day was spent climbing up and down steps and over grassy hills as Rey gave him an extensive tour of what was now their home, at least for now. Ben found himself watching Rey excitedly point out plump, squawking birds that nested on the island and delicate wildflowers and crashing waves, his attention fixed solely on her. Even the ancient, cavernous temple was nothing to her.

 

They returned to the outcropping of stone huts as the sun doused itself in the sea, setting the sky ablaze in orange and purple. When he retired for the evening, she followed him with her eyes but said nothing. For what felt like hours, he stared at the roof of his hut, trying not to think about Rey, stretched out on her own stone slab.

 

He came to the conclusion that sleep was impossible when a slender shadow peeked into the hut.

 

“Ben?”

 

“I’m awake.”

 

She spoke with a small voice. “I can’t sleep.”

 

Ben stared stupidly at her silhouette in the doorway. “Me either.”

 

Her entire form trembled in the outside wind. “Can I...can I try something? You can tell me no, or tell me to stop, or I can just go--”

 

“Come here, Rey,” he interrupted.

 

She approached with cautious steps, a threadbare, woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and he mentally prepared himself for the possibility that she wanted to sleep next to him. What he wasn’t prepared for when she reached the foot of his bench was for her to let go of the blanket, allowing it to pool around her feet and expose her bare form to him.

 

He sucked in sharply, his eyes shooting to the ceiling once more.

 

“Rey,” he started, his tone strained. “I...we can’t…”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Rey, you--”

 

“No,” she forced a laugh. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it. I just thought you might want...but I was wrong so I’ll leave and we can pretend this never happened.”

 

She bent over to grab her blanket and hurried away before he could get a word in edgewise, not bothering to pull it back around herself.

 

_“Rey!”_

 

He called after her, pushing back his own blanket and stumbling across the darkened hut and into the night. She stood with her back to him, her shoulders shaking under the moonlight.

 

“I do want to,” he told her. “But I can’t do that to you. I’ve already taken so much from you by forcing you to come here with me, I couldn’t live with myself if I took this too, not when you deserve so much more.”

 

“It isn’t taking if I give it willingly.”

 

Ben sighed. “You shouldn’t be giving this to me.”

 

She whirled on him. “I don’t care if I _shouldn’t._ I don’t care about what you _think_ I deserve, I want you,” she said, the moon illuminating the rage that cast shadows over her features.

 

Rey closed the distance between them swiftly, gripping the front of his tunic to bring him at eye level with her. Ben knew she was fairly tall for a woman but he hadn’t realized how much taller he was until that moment, as he drank in the fury in her eyes and her bared teeth, mere inches from him.

 

“I don’t care, Ben. If I want you, and you want me, it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t do.”

 

Ben wasn’t sure who leaned forward first but their lips met in a soft collision and all common sense, all human decency escaped him.

 

“Rey,” he breathed into her lips, blown away even by this chaste contact.

 

“I don’t want to hear another word,” she seethed, her teeth closing around his bottom lip, drawing a groan from the back of his throat. Ben chuckled as he nipped back at her.

 

“As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

They shuffled into her hut blindly, only pausing so she could lay out her blanket next to the low fire still burning in her hearth. _Their_ hearth, she told herself, because she wasn’t going to let Ben disappear into that other hut again, not when he should be here, with her.

 

“Take your clothes off,” she ordered, thankful that he didn’t argue.

 

It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man naked before. But Ben was nothing like the scrawny, starving people of Jakku, unashamed as they savored the public showers when they could afford to. When he removed his tunic, it was to expose hard muscle and firm, pale skin. He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he shucked his boots, or his form-fitting trousers.

 

He was a beautiful specimen.

 

She was suddenly aware of how her ribs stuck out to form little ridges along her sides, her body lacking the necessary fat to protect itself. Ben didn’t let her wallow for very long, distracting her thoroughly as he tugged his briefs down his hips, his cock springing forward. It was much larger than anything she had seen in the public showers, and new concern struck her: how was she meant to fit that inside her?

 

Rey decided to face this as she did anything else in her life: head on.

 

“On your back,” she said, the command in her voice dwindling with her nervousness.

 

It somehow looked bigger when he rested on the blanket, the tip of his length twitching towards his navel, seemingly defying gravity.

 

With a shudder she settled in his lap, her lower lips spreading around the underside of his cock and coating it with warm moisture. His hands smoothed up and down the tops of her thighs, attempting to soothe her worry.

 

“We don’t have to do this,” he reminded her gently.

 

“I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut,” she huffed, shaking as she rolled her hips against him.

 

Ben groaned as she repeated the slow motion, gently rocking back. The friction was pleasant as she moved over him but Rey couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this. She lifted onto her knees and hesitantly wrapped her fingers around his cock, pointing its red, dribbling head towards her entrance.

 

She carefully sank onto him inch by inch, grunting at the unpleasant pinch of her body splitting open for him. Rey took a deep breath when she raised her hips to sink onto him again, her hands curled around his shoulders for support.

 

She continued to jerk onto him, her pace gradually picking up as she became slicker with each drop into his lap.

 

“Fuck,” he whispered as she rode him roughly, pressing his palm flat against her belly and growling, “I can see my cock moving inside you.”

 

Rey wished she could tell him to shut up but she looked down to see a slight bulge stretching out the skin of her stomach and clenched around him in response, growing wetter still.

 

“Look at that,” he uttered in awe, jolting upwards, no longer content to be ridden.

 

Their hips collided with wet slaps, her moan becoming a startled shout when he sat up, slipping deeper within her. They didn’t need to be quiet but he covered her mouth with his own, swallowing each cry of pleasure as he brought her closer to completion. His warm breath clung to her face when his movements became too frantic for them to kiss, their lips missing each other with wet slides.

 

Her belly tingled with hot pleasure, spreading from her core and down her limbs until she could feel it in her toes, each muscle pulling impossibly tight around his cock. It was too much to bear, reality breaking with her as Ben fucked her through it, his arms around her the only reason she remained in one piece.

 

He was gasping when he finally pulsed into her, his hands reaching everywhere, as if to be sure he hadn’t caused her harm. Rey smiled into the damp skin of his throat, certain that she had never been less harmed in her life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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